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Boucher Clarifies Adminâs Position on Hamas to âjournalistsâ
Excerpt from Daily Press BriefingQUESTION: You are, presumably, relying on Hamas to play if not a constructive role, if and when the Israelis withdraw from Gaza, at least to not play a destructive role during that period when the Palestinians -- or if they, in fact, do regain control. How does this help your cause of getting, you know, a sustainable, reliable -- MR. BOUCHER: I think itâs a wrong presumption that youâre making. The United States has and continues -- has considered and continues to consider Hamas a terrorist organization. We continue to believe that the way to make this progress possible, the way to make the Gaza withdrawal a success for all the parties, is for the Palestinian Authority to take authority, to take authority in Gaza, but also take authority now in ending terrorism. And if the activities of terrorists and terrorist groups are brought to an end, that is the best thing we can do to try to start -- to try to get more progress and to make the withdrawal from Gaza successful. QUESTION: Well, why then are you gravely concerned? I donât get it then. Why are you gravely concerned for peace and stability if killing Hamas leaders is not really a problem in terms of the withdrawal from Gaza? -snip- QUESTION: I donât understand your answer to Arshadâs question about the -- hoping that Hamas, once the withdrawal takes place, the action which you say is so welcome, finally action not words, that youâre not hoping that they would play a constructive rather than destructive role. So your saying that you consider them now and have always considered them to be terrorists doesnât seem to be -- I mean, you used to consider the PLO a terrorist organization. You used to consider a lot of groups terrorist organizations which you no longer do. MR. BOUCHER: We especially consider groups that are actively blowing up people to be terrorist organizations. Hamas, unfortunately, qualifies as such. QUESTION: Yeah, but -- MR. BOUCHER: Weâre not counting on Hamas to do something in terms of the Gaza withdrawal. Weâre looking for people to put Hamas out of business. That has been true and will be true, and we, I think, can make clear, have made clear, that the Gaza pullout is going to go more smoothly and be more successful if Hamas is not around at all. QUESTION: Yeah, but, Richard, though -- QUESTION: Well -- Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-20 |
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